Literature Network Forums - Blogs - Progymnasmata by The Comedian https://www.online-literature.com/forums/blog.php?50498-Progymnasmata The largest classic literature discussion forum on the Internet. Read Write Teach Share. en Thu, 04 Jun 2026 15:58:02 GMT vBulletin 10 https://www.online-literature.com/forums/images/misc/rss.jpg Literature Network Forums - Blogs - Progymnasmata by The Comedian https://www.online-literature.com/forums/blog.php?50498-Progymnasmata The Meditations by Marcus Aurelius https://www.online-literature.com/forums/entry.php?10106-The-Meditations-by-Marcus-Aurelius Mon, 04 Jan 2016 02:30:10 GMT It's been a long time since I last read Stoic philosophy. I think the last work of this type that I read was the brief Handbook of Epictetus as an undergraduate. I didn't like it much. Mostly because my girlfriend at the time (who was a major repair-job) loved it. She was using the emotional detachment ideas to get over this jerk she dated before me. Nice. As a result, I thought that stoicism was just a mask that emotionally weak people wore to hide the honest and hard-earned scars on their souls. Logos, detachment, "the whole" = chicken****.

But that was then. I don't really trust the self-important, hot-shot judgment that I had back then. Could stoicism kindle my intellectual fire? I bought Marcus Aurelius' The Meditations (Grube translation) to find out.

The Meditations begins with a series of odes to people in Aurelius' life who have demonstrated unique moral or personal characteristics. Many of these are touching, emotional, and reflective and (really) against the grain of the general stoic practice of emotional distance. None the less, there are some gems here:

From his father:

not to take an empty pride in what are considered honors; to love work and to persevere in it; to listen to those who have something to contribute to the common good. . . .to use the comforts of life without arrogance or apology when fortune provides them when they are available, without making practice of it, and not to feel the lack of them when they are not. . .
These and many other observed qualities from the first book find their way into aphoristic style and structure of the remaining 100 pages that Aurelius uses as (almost) spiritual prayers or reminders of how to live a good life, make good decisions, and do good work.

Philosophically, Aurelius reiterates his belief in a guiding logos (sometimes found within divinity; sometimes logos assumes a divinity itself), a naturally derived order to which humans must synchronize if they are to be wise, and on our tendency to fall for the femme fatales of praise, fear, and greed.

While the reading is often repetitive, the cumulative effect of the repetition is that of mantra or a family prayer before an evening meal: the repetition itself draws on the power of routine and language to build meaning.

Some more of my favorites:

This on the habit of pure thoughts:
The kind of thought you frequently have will make your mind of the same kind
This on individual will and authority:
Be upright or be put right
And this, my overall favorite:
The art of living is more like wrestling than dancing, insofar as one should stand ready for, and not be thrown by, whatever happens unexpectedly.
This last makes me reflect back on my former girlfriend who had the bad beak up. Maybe she used stoicism to stand up right after she had been thrown, not as a mask to hide behind. Maybe in my mind, I was cruel to her for thinking as I did, and in those thoughts, discolored my mind.

Marcus tells me this:
when you are impatient, remember that the life of a man lasts but a moment, and after brief while we have all been laid out for burial.
And this:
rational beings are born for the sake of each other, that tolerance is a part of rightness
Indeed.

9/10 ]]> The Comedian https://www.online-literature.com/forums/entry.php?10106-The-Meditations-by-Marcus-Aurelius I Think of the Small Things. . . . https://www.online-literature.com/forums/entry.php?15041-I-Think-of-the-Small-Things Mon, 04 Jan 2016 02:28:27 GMT We just finished final presentations in my classes. I teach -- community college, English & Philosophy (picked up Masters Degree #2 in Philosophy a couple years ago; this enables me to teach the love of wisdom to American CC students). I think of Sara's presentation of whether American Literature matters: it was expertly organized and focused on emotional intelligence. Sure, she picked up on a thread that I was communicatin' to them: that one of literature's practical uses is to train us emotionally. I've never bought the whole "objective reading" line -- it's fine and harmless. But I'm not after harmless.

Anyway, Sara addressed Fanny Fern's novel Ruth Hall. It's about a 19th-century woman whom Fortune robs her of traditional happiness. She then has to rise, Ben Franklin like, to be a successful business woman despite of her family, not because of it. Anyway, Sara loved that book -- she's from a successful family. She was planning to be a high school teacher. But now she's going to take over the family business. I never could tell if she made that decision out of a feeling of obligation or out of a genuine desire. But it hardly matters. Ruth Hall spoke to her directly, echoed the thoughts she had about herself.

The best reading experiences are like that -- they're a sort of spiritual or emotional mirror. I mean, we live in a age of the image, of the selfie which gives us constant reference to our physical bodies. It's difficult to take a spiritual selfie, but maybe we can read one. ]]> The Comedian https://www.online-literature.com/forums/entry.php?15041-I-Think-of-the-Small-Things What I Read in 2012 https://www.online-literature.com/forums/entry.php?12179-What-I-Read-in-2012 Mon, 31 Dec 2012 14:48:23 GMT Here's a list of what I read last year with a brief rating of each book. At the bottom of the list are some reflections the reading year.

The Diaries of Adam and Eve by Mark Twain. 4/5

Metamorphoses by Ovid (Charles Martin translation) 4.5/5

Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury. 4/5

Letters from the Earth by Mark Twain. 4.5/5

How To Read Literature Like a Professor by Thomas Forester. 4/5

Candide by Voltaire (Translated by Robert M. Adams). 4.5/5

On Liberty by John Stewart Mill. 4.5/5

Persepolis by Marjane Satrapi. 4/5

The Sorrows of Young Werther (Translated by Michael Hulse) by Goethe. 4.5/5

The Selected Poems of Wendell Berry by Wendell Berry. 3.5/5

American Born Chinese by Gene Luen Yang. 4/5

Long Day's Journey into Night by Eugene O'Neill. 5/5

The Trial and Death of Socrates (Grube translation) by Plato. 5/5

Streetcar Named Desire by Tennessee Williams. 5/5

Antigone (Ian Johnston translation) by Sophocles. 4.5/5

McTeague by Frank Norris. 4/5

Lysistrata by Aristophanes (Ian Johnston translation) . 5/5.

The Stoic Philosophy of Seneca by Seneca (Moses Hadas translation). 4/5.

Up, Up, and Oy Yay!: How Jewish History, Culture and Values Shaped the Comic Book Superhero by Simcha Weinstein. 3.5/5.

Fritz Leiber's Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser by Howard Chaykin, Mike Mignola, and Al Williamson. 3/5.

Either/Or (part I) by Soren Kierkegaard (Translated by Howard and Edna Hong). 3/5

The Divine Comedy by Dante Alighieri (Translated by John Ciardi). 5/5.

Persuasion by Jane Austen. 2.5/5

Galapagos by Kurt Vonnegut. 3.5/5

Hard Times by Charles Dickens. 4.5/5

Beyond the Aspen Grove by Ann Zwinger. 4/5

The Adventures of Auggie March by Saul Bellow. 4/5

A Connecticut Yankee in Kind Arther's Court by Mark Twain. 4.5/5

The Beautiful and Damned by F. Scott Fitzgerald. 5/5.

Wise Blood by Flannery O'Connor. 4/5.

Julius Cesar by William Shakespeare. 4/5.

Heraclitus: The Complete Fragments translated by Dr. William Harris. 4.5/5

Timaeus by Plato (translated by Donald J. Zeyl) 3/5

Blankets by Craig Thompson. 5/5

On the Nature of Things by Lucretius (translated by Martin Smith). 5/5

The Corpus Hermeticum by anonymous (translated by G. R.S. Meade). 3.5/5

Three Treatises on Natural Science by Galen (Translated by R. Walzer and M. Frede). 4/5

Watchmen by Allan Moore and David Gibbons. 5/5

1984 by George Orwell. 5/5

Maus I & II by Art Speigleman. 5/5

Treatise of Man by Rene Descartes (Translated by Thomas Hall). 3/5.

The Death of Nature by Caroline Merchant. 2.5/5

Wandering Home by Bill McKibben. 4/5.

The Story of Philosophy by Bryan Magee. 4/5.

Wilderness and the American Mind by Roderick Nash. 3.5/5

We Have Always Lived in the Castle by Shirley Jackson. 4/5
. . . . . . . . .

I had a productive reading year in 2012, helped in part by my going back to graduate school (part time) to work on an MA in philosophy.

Some personal accomplishments from my reading list is that I got though novels from both Jane Austen and Charles Dickens. I've tried to get though a Dickens novel forever and just couldn't suffer through them. But I loved Hard Times -- a brilliant commentary on education that with ideas and characters that would lend valuable insight into the issues facing education right now. I struggled though Persuasion and I only finished it because the I forced myself to finally finish a Jane Austen novel (other than Emma, which I read in college).

Other novels that I enjoyed were McTeague and The Adventures of Auggie March -- at first, I thought that Auggie would be a struggle, but I got drawn into the language and picaresque natures of the story.

I also finally got around to reading 1984 -- terrifying. Oh! and The Beautiful and Damned was absolutely haunting and the Fitzgerald prose is just sublime. I swear that he never wrote a lousy sentence.

And one other note -- A Connecticut Yankee in King Aurthur's Court is a stunningly insightful satire of monarchy, democracy, human nature. . . . it's on par with Gulliver's Travels; it's that good.

Well, that'll do it for now. ]]> The Comedian https://www.online-literature.com/forums/entry.php?12179-What-I-Read-in-2012 R.I.P Vanilla, a beloved pet rat https://www.online-literature.com/forums/entry.php?12617-R-I-P-Vanilla-a-beloved-pet-rat Mon, 08 Oct 2012 16:50:26 GMT R.I.P Vanilla, a beloved pet rat

Vanilla was an albino rat, a "fancy rat" her tag in the pet store called her. We purchased her and her fellow female friend, later named Smokey, almost one year ago.

Vanilla, being an albino, couldn't see that well. And I could recognize this trait in her. As she crawled on my lap or on the arm of the Lazy-boy recliner that I was on, she'd extend her nose along the edges to test by feel and by smell whether there was anymore "there, there" for her to walk upon.

Because of her poor vision, Vanilla was a first-rate pet for our two girls (8 & 5); she never ran quickly and, she was meditative, never trusting her judgement to sight alone (a good lesson for me and the rest of humanity) but always testing her knowledge of the world against the conferring feelings of sense and smell.

Vanilla never bit anyone and tolerated even the most ungentle affection (by the 5 year old) with a dignity common to most animals.

. . . . . .

Vanilla died two days ago. Mrs. Comedian and I knew it was coming. The evening before her extremities (paws and tail) were growing cold. And her movement was clumsy.

That morning, I put Vanilla in a small, cardboard box and buried her in the woods near our house. The two girls wanted to say a "silent prayer" for her, so we did. I put a large rock on the spot where she was buried.

The other day the oldest girl said "when I think of Vanilla, I get a lump in my throat. . . .I miss Vanilla."

And that gives me a lump in my throat. ]]> The Comedian https://www.online-literature.com/forums/entry.php?12617-R-I-P-Vanilla-a-beloved-pet-rat HARD TIMES and the Kitchen Counter https://www.online-literature.com/forums/entry.php?12447-HARD-TIMES-and-the-Kitchen-Counter Thu, 21 Jun 2012 15:53:02 GMT I'm nearly finished with Charles' Dickens' Hard Times -- quite an accomplishment for me. I hate Dickens. But I try to read him every year because, somehow, I feel that by not liking him (at least a little), then he wins. And I like to win. A very much lot, I do.

And here's the thing: I love Hard Times. If only I had tried to read this before Little Dorritt or A Tale of Two Cities then maybe I could have defeated my anti-Dickensian-ness much earlier. And I would have spared me from Little Dorritt all together.

But to get back on track. I think that the real reason why I like this novel is because it punched me right in the guts. . . .

You see, everyday this summer, I've been working with my oldest daughter (let's call her Sissy, to keep with my analogy), helping her to learn her math facts. Reality is last year she was next to last in her class in math. She's bad at it. Why? Because she's flaky: she thinks about clouds, bunnies, her friends, her shoes, a dragonfly outside her window. Oh, and she's not competitive, not at all: she doesn't care if she gets her math facts right or wrong, doesn't care if she's next to last in her class. None of that stuff matters to her. But she worries like hell about her math, not because she's afraid of getting the facts wrong. She worries because she doesn't want to upset us when she does get her facts wrong. And she does, and we do, often.

She loves to read, she's great at understanding people, she has tremendous empathy for others. She's all humanities, all the time: what she learns has to "matter" either spiritually, emotionally, or socially. If the facts can't align with these unmeasurable human qualities, then for her, it's just hard to get that into.

. . . . . . . .

The opening chapter of Hard Times hit me as though I'd dropped a brick on my bare foot. The teacher, Mr. Gradgrind exclaims, "Facts!", "What is the definition of a horse?", and "Not Fancy, but fact is what matters! Fact! Fact! Fact". And the kids in the Dickensian classroom being crushed under the hailstorm of "facts" without meaning or value, devoid of moral or humanity. God damn, I thought. I'm that guy. Every morning, when my Sissy works on her math at the kitchen counter. That's me -- the plain fact man. The son of a *****.

Of course, success in modern American education is now an effort in memorizing facts. Its focus on "objectivity", testing and student performance on "standards" leads all schools, public and private to focus on educational material that can be counted, plotted on a graph, charted, timed and demonstrated. This forces schools and educators to either omit the greatest portions of what the humanities offer or create absurdly reductive "objective" measurements of performance.

My Sissy is in that system, and as parent, who, while critical of that utilitarian system, needs to have his children function within its broken parameters and quick-sand foundations. . . .

So there I am, at the kitchen counter with a multiplication worksheet and a timer. (Sissy's school, like all schools in my state, place a high priority on fast recall of math facts). She's working on "rocket math": 4 minutes, 80 problems; she has to finish them all, within the time frame to move on to the next worksheet. It's like a video game. "Level up"!

Sissy's panic-y; she doesn't want to disappoint her parents. I'm angry: with her for "not getting it", with me "for pushing this absurd activity", with the system for "requiring efforts in absurdity". . . . AND I know that she does need to know her math facts. That the idea of knowing facts isn't bad or wrong. Just overly prioritized and mishandled.

. . . . . . .

So I figured that while I can't change the system, nor my Sissy's role in that system, I can change the teacher. I can not be so Gradgrind. So I sit next to her, rub her back, cover the clock with a silly picture that she drew, and do my best to keep her focused (always the issue) on her math while keeping a brisk pace.

I think it's working, a little bit. With more time, I'll be able to know for sure. But I'm still being Gradgrind: "facts!", just a gentler one. One thing's for sure, in the US, education is in Hard Times. ]]> The Comedian https://www.online-literature.com/forums/entry.php?12447-HARD-TIMES-and-the-Kitchen-Counter Book Review: The Selected Poems of Wendell Berry https://www.online-literature.com/forums/entry.php?12311-Book-Review-The-Selected-Poems-of-Wendell-Berry Fri, 23 Mar 2012 12:59:48 GMT Note: This review was also posted on the forum. . . . On the first day of a graduate seminar in literature, our professors would often tells us... Note: This review was also posted on the forum. . . .

On the first day of a graduate seminar in literature, our professors would often tells us about their creation of the syllabus. We'd hear the rationale for the course, the course objectives, the student responsibilities (all pretty bland and standard stuff). And then we'd hear the most interesting part: what books/authors were left out. . . .the just didn't make the cut list. I took notes like hell during this part. Those were the guys (and gals) that I wanted to read. Bad.

Well, in a seminar on American nature writing, one of those "didn't make it" authors was the contemporary American poet Wendell Berry. And I finally got around to reading some of his work in his Selected Poems of Wendel Berry -- sort of the greatest hits of a didn't cut it poet.

I'll cut this review to the wheat: there are some great poems here and many average ones. Stylistically -- Berry mostly chooses free verse, though there are a few poems in the selection that employ traditional meter and rhyme. The selection is also a blend of shorter lyric poems and some longer poems that span up to about 30 pages. Generally, I preferred the short lyrics with one exception -- the longest poem in the collection -- "Window Poems", which was a mediation on observer, observing, and the act of observation with a single window as the literal and metaphorical focal point of the poem. Imagine if Wallace Stevens had given us 37 "Ways of Looking at a Blackbird" instead of just 13. That's what it was like, and I was glad for it.

Thematically, Berry's work focuses on issues of stability, pastoral, and marriage -- simplicity is the rock upon which each poem balances. Of the short lyrics, I enjoyed "The Wild Geese", "Stay Home", "Throwing Away the Mail", "The Peace of Wild Things", and "The Vacation" best. But there were a lot of good ones.

Final assessment: 7/10 sycamore trees. ]]> The Comedian https://www.online-literature.com/forums/entry.php?12311-Book-Review-The-Selected-Poems-of-Wendell-Berry What I Read in 2011 https://www.online-literature.com/forums/entry.php?11301-What-I-Read-in-2011 Mon, 02 Jan 2012 14:43:48 GMT _Cakes and Ale_ by W. Somerset Maugham -- 4/5 _Selected Poems_ by Paul Verlaine (Martin Sorrell translator) -- 3/5 _Weiland_ by Charles Brocken... Cakes and Ale by W. Somerset Maugham -- 4/5

Selected Poems by Paul Verlaine (Martin Sorrell translator) -- 3/5

Weiland by Charles Brocken Brown -- 3.8/5

B.P.R.D: Plague of Frogs by Mignola & Others -- 4/5

Beowulf (Heaney translation) -- 5/5

Grendel by John Gardner 4/5

Selected Poems by Giacomo Leopardi (Eamon Grennan, translator) -- 4/5

Sailing Alone Around the World by Joshua Slocum. 3/5

Daytripper -- Fabio Moon & Gabriel Ba 4.5/5

Sailing Alone Around the Room by Billy Collins. 4/5

The River of Doubt by Candice Millard 3/5.

Democracy in America (volume 1) by Alexis de Tocqueville. 5/5

Clouds by Aristophanes (Meineck Translation). 4/5

Democracy in America (volume 2) by Alexis de Tocqueville. 5/5

The Trial and Death of Socrates by Plato. 5/5

Rosencrantz & Guildenstern are Dead by Tom Stoppard. 3.8/5

JSA: The Golden Age by James Robinson and Paul Smith. 3.5/5

Song of Hiawatha by H.W. Longfellow. 3.5/5

Deliverance by James Dickey. 4/5

The Tree by John Fowles. 4/5

The Deerslayer by James Fenimore Cooper. 2/5

The Pensées by Blaise Pascal. 4/5

Ethan Frome by Edith Wharton. 4/5

Blankets by Craig Thompson. 4.5/5

Petrograd by Philip Gelatt/tyler Crook. 2.5/5

Twenty-five Books that Shaped America by Thomas C. Foster. 3.5/5

The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin by Benjamin Franklin. 4/5

The Blithedale Romance by Nathaniel Hawthorne. 3/5

Wanted by Mark Millar 2.5/5

Maus by Art Spiegelman. 5/5

Walden by Henry Thoreau. 5/5

Watchmen by Moore/Gibbons. 5/5

Benito Cereno by Herman Melville. 5/5

A Contract with God and Other Tenement Stories by Will Eisner. 4/5

The Giver by Lois Lowry. 4/5

Ruth Hall by Fanny Fern. 4/5

Sensational Designs: The Cultural Work of American Fiction, 1790-1860 by Jane Tompkins. 4/5

___________________________________
COMICS -- ongoing titles (that I subscribe to): Hellboy, B.P.R.D., Scalped, Hellblazer, and Detective Comics.

Review in Brief of Reading 2011
I was and still am on an American literature faze -- mostly because I'm teaching this subject now, after a long hiatus from it. Of course I have also sprinkled into this list some graphic novels, comics, non-fiction, poetry, plays, etc. . . but on to the awards ceremony:

Best Read of 2011: Democracy in America -- this book of the o'so boring title just brings it, sentence after sentence. De Tocqueville's prose is some of the best I've read; his observations about humanity, societies, religions, and temperament are profound and compelling in every way. And while the book may be of the most interest to the American reader, anyone interested in politics, government, and humanity as a social animal should find this book worth his or her while.

Most Disappointing Read of 2011: The Deerslayer. I wanted to like this book. I really did. It has so much going for it: frontier life, an iconic American literary character (Natty Bumpo/Hawkeye), but. . . .Cooper's writing is insufferable. Twain was right X 2.

Best Comic of 2011: Hellboy. Totally bias pick. I heart all things Hellboy. The story is great as usual, the art is magnificent. The minute an issue arrives in the mail (I live in too rural an area to have a real comics shop), I make up a reason to go to the toilet and read it cover to cover. It's one of those pleasures that required privacy and a room of one's own. ;)

Other notables:
  • Ruth Hall -- a great novel of the American 19th century. It combines elements of sensationalism with revised vision of the Ben Franklin character (from his autobiography).
  • The Song of Hiawatha -- Longfellow gets a bad rap these days. He's as skilled a linguistic poet as any that America produced. And this epic of a Native legend set to a Finnish meter hits me right where I live.
  • Daytripper -- Graphic novel of the year, if you ask me. Set in Brazil, the novel uses a Faulkner-esque plotting technique to highlight how the little moments of life offer us the most profound movements of our character, dreams, and art.


For 2012
American literature and epic poetry: currently reading books Mark Twain and Ovid. ]]> The Comedian https://www.online-literature.com/forums/entry.php?11301-What-I-Read-in-2011 Warning: Teacher Venting! https://www.online-literature.com/forums/entry.php?11984-Warning-Teacher-Venting! Tue, 04 Oct 2011 17:37:23 GMT When a student says that an author "rambles on and on", I have to channel my inner-yoga guru to calm down before proceeding calmly on with the lesson or activity.

Why such professorial ire? Because when a student says that an author "rambles on", this is what he or she means: because I'm used to being fed Twitter-sized bites of literacy pertaining to sex, violence, and gossip, anything that offers explanation, justification, evidence, and logic, I will label as "rambling" so that I can blame the intelligent author rather than indite myself for needing my literature sliced up and sugared like intellectual baby food.

. . . . .ahhh. . . . that's better. ]]> The Comedian https://www.online-literature.com/forums/entry.php?11984-Warning-Teacher-Venting! Some Poems I Wrote While Attending a Meeting at Work https://www.online-literature.com/forums/entry.php?11969-Some-Poems-I-Wrote-While-Attending-a-Meeting-at-Work Wed, 28 Sep 2011 12:45:27 GMT YouTube Education

YouTube education
In looping, 5-minute
Flashes and rotation:
Tell me that you "Like" it.

Post your thoughts and wisdom:
"Boring or awesum,
Or that Obama sux"
Legare globus lux


Expiration
A loose-limbed star,
A limp, little rawr:
Apathetic
As a wood tick --
In this meeting
I suck the dead
Expiration
In the gloaming ]]> The Comedian https://www.online-literature.com/forums/entry.php?11969-Some-Poems-I-Wrote-While-Attending-a-Meeting-at-Work <![CDATA[O' Patriotic Me!]]> https://www.online-literature.com/forums/entry.php?11799-O-Patriotic-Me! Thu, 14 Jul 2011 16:45:05 GMT I spent the 4th of July on the shore of the great Gitche Gumee with family, friends, fireworks, a cold north wind, cheap American beer, new kayaks, a... I spent the 4th of July on the shore of the great Gitche Gumee with family, friends, fireworks, a cold north wind, cheap American beer, new kayaks, a pan of room-temperature lasagne, plenty of bug spray, and a copy of Leaves of Grass.

We lit fireworks from the beach, drank too much, and talked loud. Got me feelin' the love for Americ-y. So I thought about the best patriotic songs of all time and I came up with a "best-of" list of 'em.

NOTE: This list is definitive and NOT just some guy's "opinion". It's my opinion and, therefore, universal and true. So spare the politics and share the love, O' patriotic love!

#3: You want somethin' sung right? Then give the tune to Ray. America the Beautiful .

#2 This Land is Your Land -- amazing song by Woody Guthrie about the best and worst of America. And anyone who sings truly can't whistle past the drunk behind the courthouse, so to speak. While Woody's version is good, I prefer Springsteen's. (Springsteen's lead "talk" is amazing too).

#1 It's terrible way too often -- glossy-brained nitwits singing to shallow-souled slobs. It's almost like we try to turn the sublime in to kitsch. But when you have a simple & unadorned three-part harmony singing The Star-Spangled Banner it makes a grown American man cry.

Sometimes. ;) ]]> The Comedian https://www.online-literature.com/forums/entry.php?11799-O-Patriotic-Me! Book Review: The Song of Hiawatha by H. W. Longfellow https://www.online-literature.com/forums/entry.php?11743-Book-Review-The-Song-of-Hiawatha-by-H-W-Longfellow Tue, 21 Jun 2011 15:07:05 GMT I remember my grandmother reciting excepts from the the New England "fireside poets": Whittier, Bryant, Lowell and Longfellow. And I remembered reading some of their works in high school. Later, when I studied literature in graduate school in the late '90s, I was told that scholarly focus on those poets had faded and that, essentially, they were only novelties to skim on the way to the more sophisticated slave narratives and, later, to Whitman and Dickinson.

Nothing they could have said could have made me want to read and to love the Fireside Poets more than that.

But time was a problem and time overtook desire. Until now. I finally completed Longfellow's most famous "epic" poem, The Song of Hiawatha. Written in trochaic tetrameter, I found the poem's rhythm similar to the quiet, short waves of a lake: pleasant, but urging the reader forward with gentle pushes.

The poem uses traditional western notions of a hero: divine birth, predestination, warrior/peace bringer, and tragic end into a First Nations setting -- pre-colonized upper Michigan, along the Lake Superior shore. I suspect that Longfellow's lack of "fidelity" to Ojibway traditional stories is what brought the PC ire of 1990s cultural/literary scholarship upon his shoulders. But it's clear that the story and the character of Hiawatha is an intentional amalgamation of native story with western narrative structures & poetic diction. And this combination works to tell a story that is ennobling, insightful, and entertaining.

Personally, I found the poem wonderful. It was a good story; the poetry moved the characters through the plot peacefully and naturally. And, as a minor scholar of American letters, I see Longfellow seeking to create an American epic and American heroes in the way the Ellis Island created American citizens -- by blending, mixing, and stirring varied cultural elements together. In all the Song of Hiawatha is both an entertaining read and a must-stop on the road to understanding the American poetic voice. ]]> The Comedian https://www.online-literature.com/forums/entry.php?11743-Book-Review-The-Song-of-Hiawatha-by-H-W-Longfellow An Afternoon on the Water https://www.online-literature.com/forums/entry.php?11734-An-Afternoon-on-the-Water Fri, 17 Jun 2011 18:59:40 GMT Summer's here and with it come summer projects and, any chance I can, time on the water. This summer I bought a new kayak and I've been foolish about it ever since, taking it out three days this week alone.

Recently, I've enjoyed paddling the backwaters of an area reservoir; it's filled with wild life and most motorized boats don't go near it because, unless you are expert at finding the deep river channel, the area is far too shallow and unpredictable to navigate safely. But kayaks are different. They could float over the rain running down the road.

I went out for about two hours just this afternoon. I took my fishing gear, some smokes, a camera, and Thermos of spring water.

The area is filled with wild rice beds -- the tall grasses that you see pictured here, to the left and just beyond the bow of my kayak:



Of course, I enjoy the muscular vigor of a good paddle (I went mostly up river). But did take the time to slow down and enjoy the moment:



As you can see, clouds started to roll in -- dark clouds -- so, I paddled back down river to the landing. While getting the kayak strapped to the car, I found a small group of wild pink lady slippers (orchids) Cypripedium acaule. Here's one of a pair:



And here's a close up:


After a quick piss behind a big red pine, I was off home so that I can pick up the kids and the makings for dinner tonight (mushroom ragu with spaghetti). ]]> The Comedian https://www.online-literature.com/forums/entry.php?11734-An-Afternoon-on-the-Water By The Shores of Gitche Gumee https://www.online-literature.com/forums/entry.php?11607-By-The-Shores-of-Gitche-Gumee Mon, 02 May 2011 19:03:08 GMT I can trace most of my joys, pensive moments, and profound decisions to a body of water: I asked my wife to marry me as we sat beside a lake in a... I can trace most of my joys, pensive moments, and profound decisions to a body of water: I asked my wife to marry me as we sat beside a lake in a state park. I spent hours skippin' stones along the length of the "crick" back home. I know the local waterways as I know the road to work.

Here are some fragments water and me: beers with my brother and a mess of rainbows on a stringer beside us; walking on the frozen reservoir and the terrifying thrill of hearing the ice crack and pop beneath me; my dad helping me learn to waterski at my grandma's lake cabin; seining minnows and water bugs for my aquarium. . . . .

Recently my family and I took a weekend trip to the shores of the greatest lake. And, among the many things that we did there, I taught my youngest daughter the art of of "sitting on a rock by the lake and looking at the water". It was a silly project. But how often are we taught the love and the art of sitting and looking?

We sat by the shores of Gitche Gumee and watched the Lakers filled with ore leave the port; we saw hooded mergansers and common cormorants float on the cold water; we threw stones and watched them splash. We even whispered to each other even though no one else was around. The art of sitting and looking gives a value to silence that even honest conversation is ashamed to violate.

Here we are:

]]> The Comedian https://www.online-literature.com/forums/entry.php?11607-By-The-Shores-of-Gitche-Gumee Yes, I Love Big, Boring Books https://www.online-literature.com/forums/entry.php?11599-Yes-I-Love-Big-Boring-Books Wed, 27 Apr 2011 18:50:35 GMT Yes, I Love Big, Boring Books

I'm a contrarian
by nature and by heart:
authoritarian
of the dumb and the smart.
So, you say that "Moby-Dick
goes dully on and on"?
And Dickens' *yawn* Pickwick
Papers a marathon
of tedium and woe?
For me such dullard cries
bestow a golden glow
of heavy levity
upon those boring books
of noted gravity.
Of Kindels, texts or Nooks --
I am drawn to pages
of "needless description"
like scholars to sages
and pain to prescription. ]]> The Comedian https://www.online-literature.com/forums/entry.php?11599-Yes-I-Love-Big-Boring-Books Song of a New Potty https://www.online-literature.com/forums/entry.php?11575-Song-of-a-New-Potty Wed, 20 Apr 2011 18:52:44 GMT So our old pot,
It rocked a lot:
When you had to "go",
It swayed to and fro.
Both the bowl and basin
Did much water wastin'.
A miserable crapper
With a broken flapper!

"Enough!" I said.
So off I sped
To the big box store.
Hoses, pipes and more
They had in great supply.
And potties! I had to try
To pick one with the perfect flush.
But I was in such a rush!

And I forgot
(wish I had not)
The hue of the pot!
This matters a lot!
White? Almond? Bisque? Or Bone?
If only I had known!
When then I took a mighty risk
And I went with a lovely bisque. . . .

Installation;
Defecation:
Numbers one and two
Cheer our potty new!
Stable, "Standard", and bright:
Flush and flow are just right.
I hereby proclaim a "pwn"
For our perfect little john. ]]> The Comedian https://www.online-literature.com/forums/entry.php?11575-Song-of-a-New-Potty